The present invention concerns improved methods and apparatus for winding and termination of wire coils that are required in components of dynamo-electric machines. In particular, the present invention concerns solutions for disposing the wire lead of a wire coil along a trajectory that has predetermined positional references relative to the dynamo-electric machine component.
Modern dynamo-electric machine components require disposition of the wire leads on the component along trajectories that incorporate significant changes of direction. Furthermore, an increasingly limited space is made available proximate to the dynamo-electric machine component for the presence and movement of wire lead manipulators configured to accomplish this task. The space available on a component is particularly limited for a portion of the traditional wire lead manipulator that engages the wire leads and places them along the trajectories. This space limitation is mainly caused by the presence of numerous structural accessories on the component and the high number of trajectories that are required in the limited dimensions of the component.
The present invention proposes to provide a wire lead manipulator that operates to dispose wire leads on a dynamo-electric machine component by entering within extremely narrow gaps on the component at high speed and with a lower risk of the wire lead manipulator colliding with the accessory parts of the component. Using the solutions of this invention, these achievements are possible for dynamo-electric machine components with very small spaces between accessory components (e.g., small gaps between pegs placed on a terminal board) that do not allow the passage of conventional wire lead manipulator apparatus.
These and other objects of the present invention will be more apparent in view of the following drawings and detailed description of the preferred embodiments.